1. The Field of the Invention
This invention relates to devices used for snow country survival. More particularly, the invention relates to snowshoes.
2. The Background Art
Snowshoes are essential when walking across deep snow any substantial distance. Many people who regularly travel in snow covered country via motor vehicle, snowmobile, and even small aircraft carry snowshoes in the event they become stranded due to an accident or mechanical failure and must walk out across deep snow to obtain assistance.
Full size snowshoes are generally too large to conveniently store in a motor vehicle or small aircraft for only emergency use. Moreover, full size snowshoes are too large to conveniently carry on a snowmobile. Full size snowshoes may even present a collision hazard when lashed to a snowmobile if they extend over the sides of the snowmobile or when the lashing fails and they fall off the snowmobile onto the trail. A lone snowmobiler is particularly at risk when traveling in the snow covered back country. Having snowshoes ready for use when one would otherwise be stranded in deep snow can be a matter of life and death.
The previous attempts to provide a snowshoe for emergency use has not resulted in a snowshoe suitable which can be compactly stored, for example on a snowmobiles, but also provides easy assembly and efficient operation. Importantly, the previously available attempts in the art to provide a snowshoe which can be collapsed to a smaller storage size disadvantageously produced snowshoes which are still too large to be conveniently stored, too small to work well in deep powder snow, not strong enough to withstand the rigors of hard use, inefficient during use, and/or too difficult to assemble or disassemble. Thus, it would be an advance in the art to provide a snowshoe which can be compactly stored when not being used and which can be easily assembled and which provides good performance in use.